Changes in VMware Licensing - How Can Companies Deal with It?
Obsah
The topic of VMware has been discussed in the IT market for some time but for a long time it was not clear what the changes in its licensing and prices would actually mean. And now even managers must be interested in thinking about changing virtualization technology.
The reason is the financial impact on the operation of companies whose IT runs on VMware technology. Until now many companies could use a free license. Although with limited possibilities in terms of the number of physical servers and the size of the virtual ones, it was enough for many small companies. But this is not the only ending in thi story.
What Changes Are Companies Expecting?
One of the major changes is the end of lifetime licenses. This is a phenomenon that has been flooding IT for some time now. Software providers are moving away from the traditional pay-once-and-that’s-it model and are increasingly favoring a subscription model.
VMware will now continue on the second path and, of course, this will cause problems mainly for companies that already owned lifetime licenses. However, this situation has already reached the leadership of the European Union, and we will have to wait to see if they decide to take any legal action that will modify the changes in VMware.
Another major change concerns some services that VMware will no longer provide. So it’s not just about financial changes but also technological changes, as companies will have to change the way their IT runs. If you are also using VMware, the company’s official blog will tell you what you can do if you want to stick to this virtualization technology.
These are just some of the changes that await VMware customers, the others are on the financial side. Generally speaking, prices will go up and it won’t be a subtle increase. So what are the options for businesses now running on VMware?
Next Steps
The first thing I have to mention is that companies don’t have to leave VMware. Our company did a survey among IT experts and, of course, an opinion immediately appeared, which is absolutely fine – for some companies, despite all these changes, it pays off to stay on VMware. I don’t dispute that at all.
But it is still necessary to add that whether the company decides to stay or leave, it should always be based on a well-conducted research. When there is a change, such as what is happening now with VMware, the automatic response is: “nothing needs to change.” That is true, but still something can change. And it is precisely for this decision that research and analyses are used.
Changes in the market give companies the opportunity to reflect on their operations and find out if these changes may be an opportunity for updating internal processes and technologies that would lead to greater efficiency. Therefore, we will now look at what options companies have before them. It’s a good idea to go through them even if you want to stay on VMware. One must be prepared, and this is doubly true in business.
Stay
The first obvious option is to stay with the technology. If you are a business that owns its own hardware and has VMware virtualization deployed on it, then you will need to decide what type of license to purchase and also increase the budget for IT operations, as price increase estimates that appear on the web range from hundreds of percent to over one thousand percent. It will always depend on the individual needs of the company but you have to take into account the increase in price.
If you don’t have your own hardware, but subscribe to VMware as a service – because a lot of cloud providers run on VMware – then it’s a matter of contacting your provider and finding out how much the prices will go up or how else they’ll handle the situation.
Because it may happen that you want to stay with the technology but your provider decides to take a different route. So if you have VMware as a Service from an external provider, make sure they will want to continue to use it.
Leave
The second general category of decisions involves abandoning VMware technology. It is not an illogical solution, because recently, even at the political level, voices for open solutions are being raised more and more. Abandoning licensed solutions, which includes VMware, will continue to be on the rise.
But how to deal with the transition when you have a specific type of infrastructure? Let’s have a look at it.
Bare metal
Companies that run their IT on physical devices and use VMware for virtualization have several options to deal with the change. Remember, the goal is efficiency – so we are balancing benefits and costs. The chosen solution should not suffer from poor performance due to the prospect of lower costs, but on the other hand, the performance of the solution should not be bought by costs that could ruin the company. And so far, it looks like it could be a realistic outcome for some companies.
It is only necessary to realize one thing. Two types of virtualization cannot run side by side on one server at the same time. On top of each other yes, but next to each other no. So there are types of solutions out of the question, such as running another virtualization in addition to VMware and saving on hardware.
- Parallel change – this means that the company builds a new infrastructure next to its currently running one, on which it deploys the newly selected virtualization platform. This is an approach that can be used by companies that either have enough funds to build two infrastructure systems at once or follow the guideline for backup systems. As a result, they do not have to purchase anything, they will only use the backup infrastructure for the given moment as a tool for operation.
- Cloud – Another way to approach change is to give technicians the opportunity to try a different type of virtualization as a service. For a fraction of the price, they can familiarize themselves with what is on the market and what would work best for them. It is then possible to deploy a new solution in place of the original infrastructure.
- Quit Hardware – You can also complete the previous step and change the way IT works completely. Or partially – when using a hybrid cloud. It all depends on what reason you have for running on physical devices.
Cloud Services
If your company now runs in the cloud on VMware, then of course you can use the option to migrate to another solution that does not use VMware. Attention! This is where a very good research has its place, not only regarding the prices, but also the solutions that the provider builds on. And also hidden fees.
The cloud market is full of offers such as – from 250 CZK. In fact, the price of CZK 250 is only on paper and you have no chance to get it if you actually want to do something on the infrastructure.
Hybrid Cloud
Of course, you can also reduce the financial burden by keeping only what you need on the hardware running on VMware and having the rest in the cloud. Efficiency and cost-effectiveness depend on which license you need for your solution. Also, keep in mind that not every environment is made for hybrid operation.
Multicloud
If you have a cloud service that runs on VMware, you want to save up, but you don’t want to or can’t give up this technology on the other hand, you can take advantage of spreading different IT activities across different cloud environments.
Summary
It is important to remember that the decision is yours. You can stay with VMware, you can leave it. But it is absolutely and absolutely crucial that you base this decision on quality market research and an analysis of the actual needs of your business. Otherwise, you will jump into a spiral of never-ending financial inefficiency.
